A thermoforming packaging machine of the type in question is disclosed e.g. by EP 0 515 661 B1. In such thermoforming packaging machines a so-called bottom foil, which is a thermoformable plastic foil, is unwound from a foil roll. In a forming station the bottom foil is thermoformed so as to produce packaging troughs. These packaging troughs are advanced to a filling station where they are filled with products. Subsequently, the packaging troughs are transferred to an evacuating and sealing station in which the packaging troughs are closed with a top foil and, if necessary, previously evacuated and/or flushed with a replacement gas. Following this, the packaging troughs are normally separated from one another by longitudinal and cross separators.
The filling of the packaging troughs with products can be executed manually or in an automated fashion with a filler. For manual filling, the filling station and the filling line must be comparatively long so that a sufficient number of persons having a sufficient radius of movement can stay in this filling area and so that these persons have enough time for filling the packaging troughs. This, however, has the effect that the packaging machine inevitably becomes very long so that it not only takes up a lot of space when installed but is also comparatively expensive.
Automated filling of the packaging troughs with products by means of a filler has the advantage that the number of packaging troughs that can be filled per unit time is higher than in the case of manual filling. Frequently, conveyor belts are used for conveying the products (e.g. sliced food, such as sausage or cheese slices) into the packaging troughs.
However, even the use of an automated filler does not allow shorter dimensions of the thermoforming packaging machine. Since the bottom foil is always conveyed through the conventional thermoforming packaging machine in the same plane, the forming station used for thermoforming or at least the tool top of said forming station must project upwards beyond the conveying plane of the foil. Since especially sliced food must not fall perpendicularly into the packaging troughs and since filling takes place in the same transport direction as the transport of the bottom foil (so that, just as in the case of EP 0 515 661 B1, also juxtaposed packaging troughs are filled simultaneously), the conveyor belt of the filler must inevitably be inclined downwards. In order to prevent an excessively steep inclination and in order to avoid undesirable slipping of the products on the conveyor belt, the filling station must inevitably have very long dimensions also in the case of automated filling.